About

I’m Janice O’Brien, the author of the Steps to Superb Spelling program. I live in Florida, am a retired grandmother of five, and owner of eight Nigerian Dwarf goats and one Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dog. I’m a Christian, attend a Southern Baptist church, and am involved in Precept Bible studies. I am also an avid watcher of General Hospital. My husband, Bob, is an IT Specialist, and was instrumental in getting my book completed and published, and this website made. We’ve been married 44 years.

I myself was taught to read via phonics. I have a background of homeschooling for ten years and working as an SLP (speech-language pathologist) in the schools for 15 years. I taught my three boys to read in K-4, Kindergarten, and a bit in 1st grade if needed, using an intensive, systematic (AKA synthetic) phonics program called Play ‘n Talk. All three of my sons became excellent readers, and read a lot as children and teens.

Speech-language pathologists are trained in hearing sounds and in how they are produced in order to remediate speech sound errors (e.g. lisps, /r/ or /l/ errors). I worked at the elementary, middle, and high school levels in the public schools, and a bit in private schools as well, and also worked briefly in a clinic where I used the Barton Reading and Spelling Program to teach some of my clients. This program was excellent, but drawn out over several years of teaching to help those who struggle more with reading and spelling. My Steps to Superb Spelling program is geared toward learners without disabilities who’ve been taught to read through phonics and are able to identify sounds accurately.

The consonant and vowel sections compose almost 60% of the student workbook. You will notice in the Table of Contents that these are organized by sound: /k/ sounds, /s/ sounds, /j/ sounds, etc. Less common spellings are also placed in these sound categories (“additional spellings for /k/, /s/, /j/,” etc.), so when a list is dictated to the student, they only have to recognize the sound and put the spelling in its place. (Although analysis is required on some to determine which of two spellings should be used.) It is explained in the Conventions Used in This Book that I use a layman-friendly system of designating sounds. For example, the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) uses /j/ to indicate the y sound, but I use it in the book to indicate the j or soft g sound. Likewise, there are several characters in the IPA for sh, ch, th, and vowel sounds, that I just designate /sh/, /ch/, and /th/ and as a short or long a, e, i, o, or u sound.

There is plenty of reinforcing exercises and games to help the concepts “stick” and aid the student in developing mastery. There are crossword puzzles and homophone games for practicing the 205 homophone words taught throughout, and some concepts (e.g. spelling with one vs. two consonants like in “hoping” and “hopping”) are taught in different ways. There are vowel charts for each short and long vowel, plus the r-controlled vowels, to fill in and answer questions about so the student gleans information about the use of the spellings. And near the end of the workbook, when the student is old enough to work on it, many Latin suffixes are taught by sound in the Sufficient Suffixes game.